Sánchez announces Spain will reserve two million COVID vaccines for humanitarian contexts

The commemoration of this event in Madrid is recognition of the role played by Spanish civil society, the world's largest donor to UNHCR, to which it donated more than 100 million euros in 2020.

The President of the Government of Spain said: "Spain is no stranger to the reality of refugees because the Spanish people are a people of solidarity, who do not ignore the suffering of others, even if it happens far from our borders".

Sánchez addressed the importance of universal access to vaccines and announced that Spain will set aside two million of the COVID-19 vaccines already committed to humanitarian contexts. These two million vaccines are part of the 50 million doses that Spain will donate by the first quarter of 2022.

"We are aware that cooperation mechanisms are not reaching everyone. Refugees have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic and many of them have been trapped in areas of enormous vulnerability, outside any conventional health care network," said Sánchez.

The meeting was attended by the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, as the rotating president of the MIRPS Support Platform; the honorary goodwill ambassador of UNHCR, Barbara Hendricks, the honorary president of Spain with UNHCR, Antonio Garrigues Walker, the journalist Rosa Montero, and two refugee women in Spain: Amal Hussein and Sadaf Rahimi.

Hussein, who works for an NGO to raise awareness about female genital mutilation, fled the war in Somalia at the age of eight with her family. Rahimi and her sister, refugees in Spain since 2016, were members of the first Afghan women's boxing team. In August 2021, her family arrived in our country on one of the Spanish repatriation flights from Afghanistan. The President of the Government of Spain, on Hussein and Rahimi, stressed: "You are examples of human resilience and the capacity to overcome. How far people can go when they get the right help when they need it most.

Spain, one of the main recipients of asylum applications in Europe, received more than 88,762 in 2020, mostly from Venezuelans, Colombians and Hondurans. Sánchez has pointed out that, in addition to refugees as a result of conflict, the climate emergency caused more than 30 million displaced people by 2020 and could become one of the main causes of forced displacement. Currently, 68% of refugees come from only five countries (Syria, Venezuela, Afghanistan, South Sudan and Myanmar), and 86% of them have been hosted in developing countries.

The Government is finalising the first Spanish Strategy for Humanitarian Diplomacy, which includes a priority line to care for refugees. The Strategy pursues the objectives of conflict prevention through mediation; strengthening respect for international humanitarian law in the event of conflict; and promoting the participation of the most vulnerable groups in the reconstruction phases.

The President of the Government of Spain concluded his speech by stressing that "the refugee situation can only be tackled by strengthening multilateral cooperation and commitment from all".

Foto: Pool Moncloa/Fernando CalvoAfter the event, Pedro Sánchez held a bilateral meeting with Filippo Grandi in which they discussed the asylum situation in our country, Spain's Diplomatic Humanitarian Strategy and access to vaccines in humanitarian contexts.

Non official translation